Robin Harris: Hello, everybody. I'm Robin Harris. I'm a barbershop singer. I don't know if you know what that is or not. The Barbershop Society started out in 1938. A bunch of guys got together on a rooftop in Tulsa, Oklahoma to sing together. And they figured that with all the pressures of the world and everything, and their rights being taken away, that that was one right that couldn't be taken away, was their right to sing.

And so, a guy named Clifton Cash sent out a invitation for these guys to meet and sing, and he made a song list and everything else. It says, "We'll just sing from the beginning to the end, and come what may, we'll get it done." And so, they did. They were supposed to have 14 singers show up the first night, but they ended up with 26. Fourteen were invited, 26 showed up.

Shortly after that, they founded the society, which is now called the Barbershop Harmony Society. Back in the day, it was called SPEBSQSA Incorporated, which stands for the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, Incorporated.

So, it started out at humble beginnings. Twenty-six men on a rooftop in Tulsa. Within a month, they were 150 men, and they had to get a different building because everybody was complaining about the noise they were making.

There's a pretty interesting invitation letter for that first night, and it says, "Gentlemen, in this age of dictators and government control of everything, about the only privilege guaranteed by the Bill of Rights not in some way supervised and directed is the art of barbershop quartet singing.

Without a doubt, we still have the right of peaceful assembly, which I'm advised by competent legal authority includes quartet singing. The writers of this letter have, for a long time, thought that something should be done to encourage the enjoyment of this last remaining source of human liberty. Therefore, we have decided to hold a song fest on the roof garden of the Tulsa Club on Monday, April 11th at 6:30 PM. A Dutch lunch will be served.

After several months of research and investigation, we are convinced that your record warrants our tendering you the honor of joining this group. We sincerely trust you will not fail us. As evidence of the work that your committee has done in this connection, we enclose a compilation of most of the good old-fashioned barbershop quartet songs, which we trust you will look over and familiarize yourself with. Bring this list with you.

It is our purpose to start right at the first song and sing every song in numerical order, plow right down the middle and let the chips fall where they will.

What could be sweeter than 10 or 12 perfectly synchronized male voices singing Dear Old Girl? Just thinking about it brought back to our committee fond memories of a moonlit night, a hayride, and a soft young blonde visitor from Kansas City we dated on that occasion years ago.

Don't forget the date and make every effort to be present. Telephone us if convenient. We will have a private room so we will not be embarrassed by the curiosity of the vulgar public. You may bring a fellow singer if you desire. Harmoniously yours, Rupert Hall."

That was how this all started. And I have been a barbershop singer for 26 years. I've been a member of this Farmington chapter. And I don't know, I guess I've probably made some of the best friends of my life singing with this group. We sing good old songs. We sing some newer songs. We've got people singing with us from age, in the past, 14 to 87. And it doesn't matter, everybody just loves singing together, and that's the joy we get out of this.

The camaraderie, the fellowship, you might even go so far as to say the brotherhood of The Barbershop Singers is something I have never experienced until I got into this. It started out it was all men only. And in the past few years they have, as a society, has voted to allow women into the society now, but they still have to sing the same arrangements that the men sang over the years. And so, it's added more to our membership, added more to our lives. And I don't know, it's just something I don't think I could live without really. I told my wife when I'm buried they need to put on my tombstone, "He sang where they let him." And that's kind of where I'm at.

We meet once a week, our Farmington chapter, which is Four Corners Harmony. And we meet once a week on Monday nights, and we sing for two hours, from 6:00 till 8:00. And there has to be something really wrong if I miss that night, and I'm sure everybody else in the chapter feels the same way because they've come in with hurt legs and hurt backs and hurt necks and everything else. And so, it's just a way to get together and enjoy each other and enjoy the music and do some close harmony and ring some chords. Ringing a chord is where you're so tight together that it makes another tone above what you're singing that's just part of the chord, and it just sends chills up your back, makes your hair stick up on your arms.

But I really enjoy barbershop music, and the ones that like the sound and like the four-part harmony with the seventh chords and all that we do, they love it too. They can't get away from it. They go off to college and they still come back to it. It's just a great thing to do.

As far as health benefits, they say, "Is there health benefits to it?" Yes, there is. You can go to different studies that show that when people that sing, their minds are clearer, they learn better, their lungs are healthier, their bodies are healthier. And if you look at society as a whole, that kind of shows itself because we've got a lot of men in our society that are above 80 that are still singing and going strong. That's the great thing about it.

On a personal note, I sing with the Farmington Chorus. I'm also a member of the Durango Chorus, which is the Durango Narrow Gauge, and I'm also a member of Duke City Sound out of Albuquerque. I'll be joining them in St. Louis in about a week and a half to sing at an international contest for the Barbershop Harmony Society. So, that's something that is real exciting in my life. It is just a great thing. It is a great hobby. I've made great friends. I can't think of anything else that I would rather do. I kind of put that right after my wife and my life as the things I want to be around.

The Barbershop Society has a lot of honorary members that are famous singers and people you might know. For instance, Manhattan Transfer was made an honorary member in 2018 because of their harmonies and the way they put forth four-part harmony. Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs was made an honorary member in 2017. He's a great bass. The Fairfield Four, they won several Grammy Awards for gospel singing. They're honorary members. They do a lot of four-part harmony and a lot of eight-part. There's just so many. The Nylons, the Oak Ridge Boys, Bill Gaither, they're all honorary members. Dick Van Dyke is an honorary member. There's just so many, and a lot of them have sang barbershop on the stage, on the international stage, as a matter of fact. Mike Rowe, Dick Van Dyke, and a couple others sing barbershop. And there's several guys that were members of boy bands in the early 2000s that started out in barbershop. It's a great hobby.

And if you don't mind, I'm going to do another plug for the chapter. We meet Monday nights at 6:00 PM at the Church of Christ on 20th Street up by the high school. you're welcome to come sing with us. You're welcome to come listen to us, whatever you may be. And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. If you have an inkling and want to do some four-part harmony, you want to do some tight close harmony, come see us, and we'll give you a piece of music to look at and a voice to sit by. That's all I've got. So, you guys have a great day, and come sing barbershop with us. It'll be good for your soul.